Groundbreaking set for addition to Air Force Museum in Dayton

Associated Press

DAYTON

Groundbreaking ceremonies are set for a new building at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in southwestern Ohio.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James is among officials planning to take part June 3 at the museum near Dayton. The ceremony isn’t open to the public.

The event will signal the start of construction the museum’s fourth building, a 224,000-square-foot addition. Plans call for work to be completed in late summer 2015, with a public opening in 2016.

The building will host the presidential aircraft gallery, an expanded space gallery, the research and development gallery, and a global reach gallery about airlift operations.

The presidential aircraft and research exhibits are currently in hangars that require visitors to take shuttles at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.